by Sasha Grey
“People like us?”
“People who need more than what others give us.”
I shiver.
And here’s where Jack should come in and see Bob looming over my body, making me uncomfortable. He wouldn’t need to ask what’s happening, because he’d see it on my face and know that whatever’s gone down, Bob is the one in the wrong.
He’d pull me from my chair, possessively, tuck me protectively behind him while he rails at Bob, quits his job, walks us from the mansion.
And we’d never look back.
But Jack doesn’t walk in.
Instead, the uncertain tapping of Gena’s heels announces her arrival just outside the door, and Bob smoothly moves away from me, composing himself before his wife enters the room with another bottle of white wine and a tray of flaky rolls she made herself. What is it about a lush drinking white wine like water?
White knights only exist in the movies, and mine is running late. Mine’s been texting me instead of phoning me just to hear my voice the way he used to.
Gena wanders to the window, looking out across the lawn, saying something about topiaries that I can’t focus on. Bob sits at the head of the table, spreading his arms out like Jesus at the Last Supper.
I suppress a smile, reminded of Sachs, imagining Bob in his place.
If I could do anything to Bob, what would I do?
Blackness crowds the corners of my vision in a rush of blood and ideas.
Sharp instruments, meant to hurt, flay his flesh from the bone, but too soon the blood fades to reddened skin and rivers of melted red wax, the macabre scene taking a sensual turn. I climb on top of him, feeling the hair on his thighs tickle the sensitive flesh on the inside of mine. The melted wax burns my belly when I press close against him, sealing us together. My hands wander up his chest, viciously pinching his nipples on the way to his throat, and I squeeze hard as I slide down onto his cock.
Bob morphs into Jack, and then I’m choking Jack while he fucks me from below, desperate to come before he passes out.
His eyes are wide and trusting, and he comes with a gasp, filling me so full that I can’t hold it all, and it drips out of my battered pussy, mixing with the red of the candle wax or blood or whatever it is staining our bodies.
I want to lick it off of us.
I squeeze my thighs together underneath the table, desperate to go finish this rhythmic pulsing off in the bathroom, but that’s when Jack finally arrives.
I hug him slightly too hard, breathing in that clean scent that clings to him, wholesome and slightly citrusy. “I missed you,” I whisper, and suddenly all I want is to be alone with this beautiful, good man and never think about the world outside again.
“I missed you, too.” He gives me a quick squeeze before letting me go and nodding at Bob. “Bob, Gena, how are you?”
“We’re good, son, how are you?”
We sit down, separated, and I want to seal us together again, reaffirm our connection after what feels like more than just a few days apart.
But first I have to get through supper with the DeVilles.
Jack makes small talk, catching up with Gena and Bob even though it’s me he hasn’t seen in days. Bob keeps shooting me meaningful glances over the table, as though this proves I’m not the one Jack cares about most.
I refuse to let that seed of doubt bloom into something more problematic under DeVille’s insinuations. He’s not a good man.
I ponder the true nature of evil over my creamed asparagus.
It’s all subjective—morality isn’t absolute, though I do think it’s innate. The vast majority of us have that inner compass that points us in the right direction when we veer off course and fuck up, doing something truly mean or petty.
Or worse, something actively harmful to another person.
I remember one time, when I was about seven years old, I was riding my bike as fast as I could to get home on time—I’d stayed at my friend’s house a little longer than I should have and was going to be late. My mom had warned me that the next time I came home late, I’d lose privileges—a vague threat that my fertile imagination was only too happy to take to the worst possible scenario.
It had rained hard that morning and was still a little drizzly, but there weren’t many puddles.
I heard the squelch of my tire running over something before I saw what it was, and I’d made it twenty feet farther on the sidewalk before stopping my bike, dread forming into a knot in my guts, making it impossible to continue home until I’d seen what it was I’d killed.
I knew it was a baby bird. I just knew it.
I didn’t want to see, but I couldn’t blithely bike home at the same pace as though nothing had happened. Even at seven, I knew I owed it to the life I’d snuffed out to bear witness to its demise.
So I’d put my bike down, steeled myself, and walked back to the scene of the crime, feet heavy with the knowledge that I had killed something.
When I got there, it wasn’t a baby bird at all, but the biggest, fattest worm I’d ever seen, writhing around, nearly crushed in two.
I felt relief and then resentment that I’d been so upset over a worm. It wasn’t until I was zipping toward home on my bike again that I wondered why it mattered when I thought it was a bird, but not a worm. I’d burned ants with magnifying glasses on hot summer days with my brother, but the thought of running over a baby bird made me feel terrible, sick to the pit of my stomach.
Was it the jump across phyla that caused my feeling of relief, or did it come down to the fact that it was accidental? Why should that have mattered?
What makes an act evil, or immoral, or even wrong?
Perception of value? The bird would have been “worth” more than the worm.
Permission?
And what does any of that have to do with good or evil?
Jack nudges me with that look he has when he’s asked a question and I’ve missed it, and that annoys me, so I nod like I know exactly what they’ve been droning on about for the past few minutes.
It turns out I just agreed to stay overnight here instead of going home. I could kick up a stink, and we’d go home, but I know Jack would give me shit, mortified at my refusal of Bob and Gena’s hospitality.
Maybe it wasn’t evil of Bob to offer or Jack to accept, but it sure feels intentional in this moment.
SIXTEEN
STAYING OVER AT THE DEVILLES’ mansion isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it feels like trying to go to sleep inside a burning building. My every instinct tells me to run, that it’s not safe, that sooner or later I’m going to get scorched.
Maybe not a burning building, because that would leave nothing but nice, warm, clean ashes behind.
This is more like being trapped inside a building that’s getting flooded with brackish water. Eventually I’ll drown and the water will drain, but by then I’ll be alone, with nothing but mold to keep my bloated corpse company.
The last time we spent the night was the time before the night Bob and I…
I shiver at the memory and slip beneath the cotton sheets, snuggling down in an attempt to get comfortable next to Jack’s warm body, but he’s facing away from me, still tapping notes into his phone with his thumbs.
He turns toward me, propping himself up on one arm. “Cath, there’s something I’ve been wondering for a while.”
I still smell the dampness from my imagined flood, and I suppress a gag as I walk my fingers up his chest, trying to lose myself in Jack instead of the memories of DeVille.
“Is it how my pussy feels from the inside? I know it’s been a while, but you can’t have forgotten already,” I tease, half-desperate for a distraction before I go too far inside the memories I’ve pushed back for so long.
But there was something else. Something about a coin.
Jack captures my hand, toying with the engagement ring on my finger, but I can barely feel the touch of his hand on mine. “I want to set a date to get married.”
�
�Oh.” And just like that, I’m flung back into this moment, here, with the warmth of Jack’s body next to mine, his eyes smiling down at me with something akin to shyness. I’ll always be safe with Jack.
He squints at me with a grin. “Is that a good oh?”
Guilt squirms through my guts as I think of La Notte and how deeply I’m entangled in things over there—and how much further I’m willing to go for the story, for Lola’s closure.
For my own.
What would he do, how would he look at me, if he knew every little detail about the things I’ve done? Then again, I haven’t done anything that compromises our relationship. If Jack had done everything I have at La Notte, I’d be okay with it. I haven’t crossed any lines.
Do I know every little detail of who he is and what he’s done, too? I decide that it doesn’t matter, but I still want to know why, after all this time, it’s this moment, this bed, in this house, that he’s chosen to do this, especially when he’s been so distracted lately with work. “What’s brought this on?”
He shrugs. “We’ve been engaged for a while. I love you.”
“Is that it?” My heart sinks in my chest. “Because it’s time?” Gee, how romantic.
He shakes his head. “It’s not about a clock—though it is time. No, I want you to be my wife, and I want us to be that crusty old couple disgusting their kids with public displays of affection, and we can’t do that until we make it official.”
I press my lips to his, overcome that this perfect man wants to grow old with me. I needed to pursue Inana so I could close that chapter on my life and move on with Jack. It’s helped me grow, and it’s helping me learn more about myself. What if I’m not enough for him in ten years? What if… “You choose the date,” I say between kisses. “I love you, I don’t care when we do it.”
“July 7?”
“Why the seventh?” I pull back.
He grins. “Because it’s lucky.”
Although I’m pretty sure there are cameras everywhere, I can’t stop myself, and I tear the sheets out of my way to get to Jack.
One piece at a time, we remove the cotton barriers from each other’s bodies, slowly but surely. I wrap my arms around his body, curling myself tight against his chest to let him heat me up with his skin and then roll on top of me. The way I feel when he’s pressing me into the mattress is safe and comforted and wanted. It’s like coming home.
God, I’ve missed this.
I gently scratch my nails down his back and cup his tight, strong ass, squeezing it hard. He kisses me deeply, thrusting his tongue into my mouth when I grind against the base of his penis, feeling him go from semi-hard to thick and solid against my crotch.
It feels like it’s been forever, and I want Jack’s cock buried deep inside. I don’t care if there are thirty cameras catching every inch of space in this room; I need Jack now.
I swing my leg across his body, bracing my hands on his chest to hold steady as I straddle him.
He pushes the blanket and sheets out of the way, exposing me further, but it doesn’t even matter.
Part of me is getting off on the idea that Bob is watching us right now.
Watching me fuck Jack—the man he considers the son he never had.
Watching his “son” fuck something he can never, ever have.
Jack diddles me with his thumb, and I’m soaked in a few seconds. Let’s hear it for the Xbox generation of guys with nimble fingers. I slather my juices all over him, and he lets out a moan that makes me want to do it again.
So I do.
And then I guide his fat cock to my tight little hole and gasp at the way my pussy opens up to accommodate him, seemingly tighter after even a few days apart.
He’s practically nudging the back of my throat, he’s so deep, and I’m riding him, swiveling my hips along with his like we’re churning butter.
I want his cream in me.
His hands find my tits and caress them, pinching my nipples, and I lean forward over him to grant better access as I slide up and down his cock, keeping the rhythm going to give the cameras a nice show.
I imagine Bob sitting in a cramped room, basted in the glow of monitors and his disappointment, stroking life into his penis, watching me fuck Jack, wishing he was with me doing something else.
“Fuck me harder, Jack.”
And he does, back arching, legs shaking to slam himself into me, but I want more power and so does he, because he grabs my hip and rolls us over, pulling out so I can get on my knees for him to take me from behind.
I brace myself with wide-spread hands, arching my back and waving my little ass in the air, taunting him with my pussy. “Are you going to fuck my tight little hole, Jack?”
He spanks my ass once, and I cry out and smile over my shoulder at him. “I want you to come inside me and then use your come to fuck my ass next. I want you to pound into me and make me scream.”
He jerks my hips back on the bed, burning my knees a little with the friction, and he spears me again.
I can’t stop smiling.
He’s ramming into me from behind again and again and again, like he knows we’re part of a show, too, but the fact that it’s just me making him this hot makes me wild, and I push back, listening to the smacking of my ass against his body.
This is what we could be forever. Him and me and our bodies and our love.
He pushes me to the mattress and clasps our hands above my head, twining our fingers together as though he feels the same thing I do. Our connection. Our love. And Bob jerking off in the closet watching us.
I can feel myself starting to come, spasms turning inward like a flower deep inside, and I spread my legs until I swear my hips will dislocate just to feel his balls slap against my clit and his breath quickens and his hands spasm in mine and I know he’s about to come inside me. “Bob could be in the closet right now watching us, jerking off.”
He tenses and goes still while I thrash underneath him, trying to get him off with the vibration of my body, wanting him to feel the depth of my orgasm squeezing the insides of my pelvis almost painfully. “What the fuck, Catherine?”
He pulls out of me and moves away from me, tugging the sheets around himself like a barrier.
I sit up. Shit. There’s no way to explain that train of thought, so I spin it into something else I’ve thought about. “There’s something about the idea of being watched—or watching you that turns me on.”
“Are you serious?” Unfortunately, his inflection is incredulous, not exploratory.
I pull my legs beneath me so I’m sitting like a mermaid, trying to look suggestive. “You don’t think it would be hot to bring a woman to our apartment and ravage her while I’m in the bedroom watching, and she has no idea I’m there?”
“And what, you spring out of the closet like a damned jack-in-the-box?”
“I thought you would be into that.”
“Well, I’m not. You’re fine with me fucking other people? What does that say about you—have you been sleeping with other guys behind my back?”
“Jack, no!” God, this is so far from what I wanted to happen. “I swear.”
He shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s like I don’t even know you. I mean, these ideas are one thing when you’re a teenager, but right now we’re supposed to be getting serious in our lives and careers, and you’re off pretending to be a rogue femme fatale or whatever—”
“Stop pretending like our sex life and work life need to be the same! Your fantasy about coming home with someone while I was masturbating is acceptable, but my flirtation with the same idea isn’t? You’re being an enormous hypocrite about fantasies.”
“Bob is like a father to me. There’s a huge difference.”
“Fine, but this isn’t just about fantasies. You’re belittling my job. I’m a reporter. I’m writing a story, not playing at anything. You’re not respecting us, or my work!”
“I’ve offered better stories for you.”
“Maybe I want to do i
t on my own. I don’t have DeVille giving everything to me one silver spoonful at a time.”
He glares at me. “And I do? I work damned hard at my job and work insane hours to do it, and now that my efforts are finally paying off, you expect—what? You want me to take more time out of my day to chit-chat with you about some dead pop star? It’s not worthy of my time.”
“First of all, she wasn’t a pop star, and second, what, I’m not worthy of your time? What’s that saying, Jack, that your job is more important than mine?”
“Yes. A few minutes ago, we were talking about setting a date to be married. That’s the ultimate commitment, and then while we’re making love, you talk about how my boss, my mentor, could be watching us, and wouldn’t it be hot if I brought another woman home and fucked her while you watch? Grow up. If you were really serious about reporting, you’d have taken my offer to ask Bob for something. Obviously you’re not ready to be an adult.”
His aloof manner and this overreaction click things into place—a horrible place I don’t want to go, but have to. “Is there someone else?”
“No, and I can’t believe you’d even ask me that.” He rolls away from me and angrily rearranges the covers. “I need some time to think—and you need some time to grow up, obviously. Forget about July. We’ll talk about it again when you’re ready to settle down.”
Relief fills me at his denial, but it still doesn’t fix things. “You can’t take it back!”
“I’m not talking about this any more tonight, Catherine.”
I try a couple more times, but he’s stonewalling me, and I lie back confused and hurt at the casual way he belittled my job. Even if he was just shocked at my timing, he’s gone too far and spoken to me as though I’m a bad child instead of a partner.
It feels like I’m trapped in a bed with a stranger and trapped in a house with my enemy, DeVille. And the fact that maybe Bob was right about Jack’s allegiances hurts worst of all.
That night I dream about that ruby-red silk robe with the gold embroidery that I wore when I discovered the man in the mask that I was fucking was Bob. I’m walking along a beach, somewhere warm but not hot, tracing the golden threads with my fingertip.
